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President Obama is expected to announce Wednesday night that he'll pull out at least 5,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and the rest of the 30,000-plus surge force by 2012. The president’s decision is likely to draw criticism from both sides, including those who feel the war isn't winding down fast enough and others who view the troop draw-down as “cut and run”.

Does this approach leave too many or too few troops in place? Will President Obama win politically by essentially splitting the difference on Afghanistan?

UPDATE: President Barack Obama on Wednesday night told the nation that he will bring home 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year and reverse the full 33,000-troop surge by the end of next summer.

The president's plan is a more rapid drawdown than what top Pentagon officials had favored, reflecting growing fiscal and political pressures at home. Obama believes the accelerated drawdown is possible because of military gains by U.S. and coalition forces since he launched the surge in December 2009. About 68,000 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan after the withdrawals.

The generals in charge of this operation recommended to the president that we withdraw 5,000 troops at the end of this year an then assess the situation based on conditions on the ground. Unfortunately this president rejected the advice of his top military advisors in the field and instead decided to go forward with a political calculation which geared toward the next election. This complete withdraw of our surge forces jeopardizes the substantial progress we have made toward victory and undermines our troops.

With the capture of Osama bin Laden and other gains against Al Qaeda’s terrorist network in the region, it’s time to scale back our military presence using a balanced approach. We need to move swiftly to bring our troops home, but the drawdown must be measured and responsible - further progress on training Afghanistan National Security Forces and improved governance is fundamental to ensuring a successful transition to Afghan control and stability.

I’m going to listen very carefully to what the president says tonight. My gut feeling is that there may be too many troops left. I was hoping that the pattern of withdrawal would be a little sooner.

I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because apparently he’s reviewed things and made this decision. For me the question is: ‘is this the most effective way to cripple Al Qaeda? I’m not sure. I’m not sure that getting us bogged down in a war for five more years or twenty more years is feasible. Obviously Al Qaeda has to be confronted. If there is a way to do it with less troops, that’s what I’d like to hear from the administration.

Does Obama’s troop reduction leave too many or too few troops in place? We'll see what the president decides. I do know that the trend line should be dropping. 5,000 troops this year isn't very significant. The U.S. has made a huge, decade-long commitment to Afghanistan. We have given Afghans a chance. They need to take sole responsibility for their country.

Can Obama win politically with this plan? The commander-in-chief shouldn't be playing politics with Afghanistan. We have troops in the field.

This is not a significant or visible reduction. The American people are war weary. When you look at the number of troops there, you see there is no military solution in Afghanistan. The surge was 30,000 troops and we need at least 20,000 to come home quickly.

I think the American people are going to listen carefully for what the president will say. The American people recognize that we have many challenges here at home. We can no longer spend $100 billion on a war that has no military solution.

It’s really a question of strategy. Is this a responsible drawdown that leaves Afghanistan stable and protects our troops? Hopefully this begins a responsible transition and powers a potential counterterrorism program for the future. The American people are exhausted by the effort [of the war] and are wondering why we’re still there. It’s up to the president to explain that to the American people. These are matters of war and peace, life and death. I do support a responsible drawdown.

I think what President Obama is doing is keeping with his commitment. I don’t think he’s playing politics with this – this is too serious of an agenda. What he’s doing here is thinking about the safety of the country first. He’s not thinking he’s going to win votes – if he was weighing that, he’d go toward his base. He’s making an assessment.

Once again the president refuses to take a stance and lead. Instead, he tries to please all sides. That’s not leadership. We should be drawing down troops much faster, without announcing to the world and our enemies what we’re doing.

The critical question is ‘what is the mission?’ If the mission is nation building, we’re going to need a lot of troops for many years to do that. I want to hear the president say that the successful elimination of bin Ladin gives us the opportunity to change our mission in Afghanistan from nation building to counterterrorism.

We will focus like a laser on terrorists wherever they are in the world. To accomplish that, I’d like to hear the president say we will enter into serious negotiations with all of the relevant parties and will reduce our troops to a level that is not more than 10,000 at the end of 2013. Those would mainly be special forces. This is a strategy that cannot be won politically in Afghanistan. It’s a strategy that’s not politically feasible.

Well, I think that today the efforts have been a success. We’ve caught 20 of the 30 biggest targets that we set out to capture. But I think it's time to start policing the streets of American and quit policing streets of Kabul. We’re laying off police officers in every city and town. The economy is in bad shape. It’s time to reinvest in America. I don’t think the president is doing enough. I don’t think anyone is particularly fond of this strategy. The American people are very tired of this conflict.

The Afghanistan decision is a perfect window into the president's leadership style - he takes in all the facts, engages in a comprehensive cerebral analysis, consider the input of other and then makes a decision in a "lawyerly way" that generally represents a smart policy (and a policy approach that like a good wine tends to get better over time).

However, this Afghanistan decision will also serve as an especially interesting window to consider how the public will perceive their commander in chief's leadership approach through the prism of the successful Obama Bin Laden operation - as this is the first major foreign policy decision the president has made since Pakistan.

Pre-bin Laden, this "take your time and apply the facts to the law" leadership approach produced decisions that were perceived as "splitting the difference" and, consequently, did not necessarily translate into a perception of a strong president who was seen as bending the arc of history to his will - and historically Americans considering giving president a second term like their presidents to be strong leaders in the traditional historic vintage of a FDR, Reagan, Clinton or Bush.

In Libya, the president's decision to pursue a limited military intervention came after weeks of review and where it has without question saved thousands of lives and pushed up Gaddafi’s expiration date - but which left the President open to attack for "taking too long", for "not doing enough" or for "doing too much".

However, it was exactly this same "Harvard Law Review" leadership approach that resulted in the successful operation to take out Osama Bin Laden.

And the success of the OBL operation has created a new prism by which the public considers the president's leadership approach - and, at least as it applies to Mr. Obama, a perception that this approach is consistent with being a strong leader.

The bin Laden success asked and emphatically answered the question of whether this is a President who has what it takes -- and it answered this question in a way that specifically affirmed his specific leadership approach.

In fact, the decision to NOT put military personnel on the ground in Libya and the decision TO put soldiers in harm's way in Pakistan are mirror images of the President's leadership style. They both reflected a President who took his time, considered the facts, solicited input and, at the end of the day, made the call himself.

Splitting the difference in Afghanistan pre-bin Laden may have been seen as Obama acting as the Democrat's "lawyer in chief".

Splitting the difference post-bin Laden means it will be seen as Obama acting as the nation's strong commander in chief.

There's a sad and tragic quality about America's Afghan policy - given the extraordinary sacrifices made by the men and women who have been and will continue to be deployed there. There's also a surreal quality.

The fact is a numbers game has supplanted -a real strategy or at least a strategy that could actually succeed. There's no wise solomonic decision for the Afghan baby; (withdrawing five vs. ten vs twenty thousand American troops) because in so many respects the baby's already dead. The standard for victory in Afghanistan has never been can we win (we can't) but when and under what circumstances can we leave. This is also true to some extent in Iraq. Cheerleaders for both Afghanistan and Iraq will tell you two things: we are winning and yes we can leave behind a better place capable of standing on its own - provided we don't withdraw too quickly, or perhaps (for some of the ultras) at all.

Having never set foot in Afghanistan with not a single military credential to back up my case, I just don't believe them. we're leaving; that much is clear; and we should; we've paid a terrible price for our "success" in American lives, money and credibility.

Our friends and enemies have known for some time we're leaving. We don't have the long windedness capable of achieving the kind of hurting stalemate that might actually persuade Taliban to participate in the kind of Afghanistan we want to see; we don't have the leverage over Karzai to produce good governance and we don't have an answer to the Pakistan problem. Taliban, Karzai and the Pakistanis -- both Taliban and ISI - do have the staying power; it's their neighborhood.

And so tonight - President Obama's night - will be about numbers; about creating a decent interval for withdrawal, and about finding a rationalization to get out of a war - now the longest in American history fought by less than 1% of our nation that will not offer America victory. Bin Laden is dead; but so is any hope that America will look back on its decade in the great game and say it was worth the terrible price we've paid.

Tom JohnsonFormer assistant to President Lyndon Johnson, former publisher of Los Angeles Times :

The situation in Afghanistan [has] some of the same elements of those in Vietnam. As with Vietnam, many Americans have become tired of the war in Afghanistan. It has gone on so long with such enormous costs to America in loss of lives and enormous financial costs.

My position is to support the views of outgoing Defense Secretary Gates. He seems to have the most informed and most sensible recommendations about Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Pakistan.

This is a tough decision, with a lot of issues to consider. I am not an isolationist, because I truly believe that we have strategic security, business, and humanitarian interests around the world. However, we cannot be everything to everyone. The sooner we recognize that point and have intelligent, thoughtful discussions about which missions and investments will have the most significant long term impact on our future interests, the better off we will be.

I have believed for some time that we need to transition our efforts in Afghanistan to training of the Afghan military and police force, with a plan to enable, empower, and turn over operations to the Afghan government as soon as reasonably possible. Beginning to draw down the troops and refocus our security efforts on a more nimble, strategic strike force that will act against any terrorist threat against us in any part of the world is the right way to go. The withdrawal should be tactical and not arbitrary, but needs to move forward.

I don’t mean to be naïve, but whether President Obama wins "politically" or not on Afghanistan should be completely irrelevant. The focus of Obama, his national security team and Congress should be to work with the military to achieve U.S. strategic goals in Afghanistan – a stronger Afghan National Army, more stable and less corrupt government, depleted Taliban, etc. – as quickly as possible.

Withdrawing 5,000 troops by the end of the year – only a brigade – is not a big deal. Planning to bring home another 20K – 25K troops in 2012 is doable and will certainly be a challenge, but the plan still allows for flexibility based on in country conditions during 2012 and the Army has withdrawn at an even faster rate in Iraq, so it can be done logistically.

More people in Washington should remember that the dead bodies of soldiers and other members of the military coming back every day from Iraq and Afghanistan are not part of an elaborate political chess game. Politics should not matter on this – what matters is what is best for the national security interests of the U.S., our allies and the countries we are trying to improve.

Of course, the president is trying to have it both ways. He will seek to be following half of the late Sen. George Aitken's advice by declaring the war "won," but not the rest of it, which held that we should then "get out." If we have turned a significant corner, as the president seems to believe, why not beef up efforts so that the rest of the troops can come home earlier than scheduled?

That is because he refuses to state what constitutes "victory" in a country that once offered sanctuary to al Qaeda and may do again in our absence. Many will rightly ask what sense does it make to inform the "enemy" ahead of time when we intend to leave? (Now that we acknowledge that we are negotiating with the Taliban, who does the president think we are fighting in Afghanistan?)

Rather than take the public's time with hairsplitting, the president should engage in a meaningful discussion with the United States Congress and the American people about his foreign policy and national security goals. No amount of words can camouflage the confusion that characterizes his policies.

President Obama will be wise to return as many troops as he deems appropriate. With the economic climate faltering, success in his foreign policy will be crucial as 2012 approaches. He will not make everyone happy, however, getting out of Afghanistan is an issue many Americans will support. If done properly, President Obama can only benefit from his decisions to return our troops home.

We had a military surge in Afghanistan - now we need a jobs surge in America

With September 11 terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden killed, al Qaeda routed, and Taliban talks underway, the U.S. military has done the job in Afghanistan so it is time to bring our combat troops home and to heal, house, and hire them.

Our troops have done all we have asked them to do, all giving some and some giving all. The thousands dead and tens of thousands wounded - some permanently - deserve our everlasting gratitude. The American people understand that transition support remains a necessity to protect our progress in Afghanistan, especially in the area of human rights, but our combat troops can and must come home.

President Obama knows that nation building begins at home. To their credit, the Obama-Biden administration and Democratic Congress allocated unprecedented resources to veterans and military families. But we need more. We need a jobs surge in Americ led by the 200,000 unemployed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. We spent billions on jobs and infrastructure for Afghanis - now we must so so for Americans.

President Obama’s reported plan of withdrawing 5,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year and withdrawing the additional 30,000 plus surge troops by year’s end 2012 is the wrong policy. Withdrawing those forces so quickly could lead to a power struggle in Afghanistan where the Taliban could crawl back out of the hole they have been hiding in since the surge took place. We must not revert back to a pre-September 11th mentality.

Terrorists still want to kill us, and withdrawing troops so hastily could put at risk the national security of the United States. One only has to look at the situation on the Afghanistan border with Pakistan. Does withdrawing these troops only create a worse situation at the border?

I hope politics did not play a role into this decision. Presidents need to lead and listen to their commanders on the ground. It would be heartbreaking to see those tremendous gains in Afghanistan by our brave men and women in uniform rolled back because of politics.

Nearly a decade after 9/11, reasonable minds can disagree about how long the United States still needs to stay in Afghanistan, and how extensive our commitment there should be. What is clear, however, is that America’s leverage over Afghan politics and security begins to shrink dramatically once we do begin to withdraw.

That’s what makes the Obama administration’s anticipated announcement of plans to start scaling down forces there so potentially self-defeating. The White House has flirted at length with the idea of engaging the Taliban, and informal talks now finally seem to be getting underway. Such a strategy might make sense if the Taliban were on the ropes, without any hope of besting the U.S. and its Coalition allies.

But with withdrawal now a reality, the Taliban can envision the day when the U.S. and its allies are no longer invested in Afghanistan in a real, tangible sense. And because they can, there’s little incentive for them to make any serious compromises over their vision for the country – or, if they do, to honor those commitments once the Coalition departs.

Simply put, our credibility with allies and adversaries alike depends in large part on our staying power – and on our outlining a long-term strategy in the struggle against militant Islam. An America that’s eyeing the exits in the War on Terror’s first front simply can’t do that.

President Obama will soon announce his much-anticipated drawdown of United States military forces in Afghanistan. Early reports indicate that Washington will withdraw one to two combat brigades and support personnel, numbering between 5,000 to 10,000 troops, by the end of 2011, and another 20,000 or more by the end of 2012.

Obama intends to placate both the hawks and the critics of the war, but he is destined to disappoint both. Those who advocate a more rapid removal of U.S. forces will say the drawdown is too slow, while the war’s proponents will charge that it reverses significant progress in the Taliban heartlands in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.

Lost in the debate is the central question: Is the U.S. still interested in defeating the Taliban, preventing al Qaeda’s return to Afghanistan in force, and preserving a government that can hold its own against an increasingly capable insurgency? And what will Washington do about Pakistan, an epicenter of global terrorism, whose military still supports the Taliban?

A massive withdrawal of forces gives U.S. commanders on the ground far less flexibility to address existing and emerging problems. Even with increased U.S. operations in Helmand and Kandahar this past year, the Taliban still control vast swaths of the Afghan land mass. The drawdown will leave far fewer U.S. troops to challenge these insurgents, and the Afghan security forces are far from ready to take their place.

Finally, the Taliban still have safe haven and state support in Pakistan, and the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan is failing. NATO hopes to negotiate a political settlement with the Taliban and its leader, Mullah Omar, with the help of the Pakistanis.

Yet the U.S. and NATO are pushing for negotiations just as they signal a massive withdrawal of forces. Even if you believe the Taliban are interested in a negotiated settlement (and I don’t), what incentives will they have to make one after the U.S. begins withdrawing its forces?

The Taliban can merely bide their time until enough foreign forces leave. In late 2001, as the U.S. routed them, the Taliban saw no need to negotiate. Regardless of their losses in the past year, they are now in a far better position.

The best number of troops to leave in Afghanistan is 0, same goes for Iraq. Al Qaeda's dreams were answered when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. They wanted nothing more than to turn the entire region into a gigantic drain pipe for the U.S. Treasury. As we inch closer and closer to debt ceilings, or create newer and higher ones, we play into their hands. There are maybe 100 Al Qaeda members running around Afghanistan playing keep-away from a multi-billion dollar spending imperial army. Is that really the sort of campaign the U.S. should be engaged in?

There are several failed states other than Afghanistan that can (and currently do) serve as breeding grounds for transnational terrorism and invading any or all of them makes no sense. Solid intelligence, hardening of domestic defense against terror activity and crafting just foreign policy is the most efficient and cost-effective way to protect the United States. It's hard to envision the conditions for a politically secure withdrawal from Afghanistan emerging any time in the near future and another decade of killing innocent civilians with incessant drone attacks is unlikely to make "them" hate "us" any less.

Getting out today is better than getting out tomorrow because tomorrow the costs will only be higher.

We are now in a position where we finally have the Taliban on the defensive. Why we would give up this advantage by pulling out troops, and giving the Taliban time to recover - especially with the Afghan security forces not having been properly trained to step up and fill the gap that will be left by the departure of American troops - is anyone's guess.

President Obama deserves criticism for a precipitous pullout, and my thus-far preferred Republican presidential candidate, Jon Huntsman, deserves criticism for actually demanding that the pullout take place more quickly. Neither man appears to fully appreciate the degree to which our progress in Afghanistan can be reversed without a sufficient number of troops to consolidate that progress. To be sure, there are a lot of people who mistakenly demand that we withdraw from Afghanistan, but one would certainly expect more from an incumbent president of the United States, and the Republican who seeks to replace him, and who has more foreign policy experience than all of the other Republican presidential candidates put together.

This is a classic example of what Obama thinks is leadership and both sides consider weakness, which leads him to draw fire from both sides and for his team to conclude that they therefore must have “gotten it right.” He can’t make any real decisions so he makes some symbolic move that “splits the difference” that he and his team imagine will win the center.

A half-stimulus that half-stimulates the economy and ultimately convinces Americans that the stimulus was useless and the government can’t do anything right. Health care reform that splits the difference between the good of the average person and the good of insurance and pharmaceutical companies that leaves most people with no idea what the law actually says other than a bad taste in their mouth. A commitment to clean energy and doing something about climate change while increasing offshore drilling and “clean coal” production when there’s no such thing as clean coal (try looking at the chest X-ray of a “clean coal” miner sometime).

The way to win the center is to be a leader, not to find the golden mean between whatever the two loudest positions are, whether it’s leave vs. stay, right vs. left, deport vs. don’t deport, Wall Street vs. Main Street, or good vs. evil.

The question is not about too many or too few. The U.S. has been at war in Afghanistan since October 2001 and that war is now essentially over. It's the longest war in U.S. history.

But just as American forces have remained in Germany since the end of World War II and in South Korea since the end of the Korean War, American troops will likely remain for many years more in Afghanistan. With the American economy dependent on a stable Middle East and with neighboring Pakistan on the precipice of political collapse, Americans should expect U.S. troops to be stationed in Afghanistan perhaps for decades no matter who is president of the United States.

Reducing the number of troops in the next 18 months from about 100,000 to about 65,000 is hardly a "cut and run." It would bring troop strength to just a little more than our permanent deployment in Germany (about 54,000) that we've maintained for over 60 years and about double our permanent deployment in South Korea (about 28,000) that we've maintained for over 50 years. In time Afghanistan will come to resemble those two deployments and possess very little political gain or loss for any American president regardless of party.

Aaron MannesUniversity of Maryland scholar on terrorism and international affairs :

This is a classic, multi-level decision in which the president must mollify multiple constituencies. Afghanistan hawks will be frustrated with the withdrawal, which threatens their fragile gains - but if they complain too loudly they call attention to the reality that if Afghanistan is so fragile then perhaps their mission is hopeless.

The anti-war faction of the president's own party will not be happy, but are they unhappy enough to undercut Obama and risk losing control of the White House (particularly with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives)?

According to Stephen Skowronek's classic "presidential time" Obama is a president practicing the politics of pre-emption. Clinton and his triangulation tactics was the archetype of this sort of presidency. Obama, despite his many stylistic differences with his democratic predecessor is substantively similar. Splitting the difference is standard operating procedure and in general it works pretty well.

One question that must be asked is, "What of Afghanistan?"

By serving as the rock on which the Soviet Union foundered the Afghanis did a favor for all of mankind. For all of the monstrousness of al-Qaeda and its radical Islamic ilk, they are nothing compared to the evil of the Soviet Union. But the Afghanis didn't ask for this place in history and have suffered terribly for it. Are they owed something for this?

Obama gained credibility in his party's 2008 nominating contest as an anti-war candidate. He touted his 2002 statement that he was not against all wars but against "a dumb war, a rash war, a war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics." With his criticisms focused on the Iraq War and not the engagement in Afghanistan, he attracted significant support. Now the public as a whole is no longer supportive of either war, with his base surely in that category, and the president's decision unavoidably involves both politics and policy.

Of course he will face criticisms from different points of view. But with high levels of job approval in foreign policy, buttressed by killing bin Laden, President Obama has an opening to provide a convincing rationale that will garner support from the bulk of the American people.

If the president indeed withdraws 30,000 troops by the end of 2012, then we will still have about 70,000 troops in Afghanistan more than 11 years after the war began, and twice as many as President Bush deployed. If we can't do whatever we want to do in 10 years, when will we achieve our purposes? U.S. troops have overthrown the Taliban and dispatched Osama bin Laden, and it's time to end this war.

Tonight, on June 22, the president should pick up some language from another June speech and tell the nation, "Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we ended a war."

As much a comment on America's penchant toward isolationism, no president has ever lost an election because he withdrew from a conflict. To the majority of the American people, the death of bin Laden, coupled with the perceived prowess of our special forces and Predator drone program, means it is time politically, to bring the troops home.

We killed the guy, Osama bin Laden who was the reason we went into Afghanistan in the first place.

The war there costs $100 billion a year which the U.S. doesn't have and can't afford.

We are fighting for a guy, President Karzai who hates us, insults our troops and has a brother who is a heroin kingpin. And we are only withdrawing 5,000 soldiers this year and leaving 70,000 troops there until 2013 or later. You gotta be kidding me.

Last week, Mitt Romney said we should stay in Afghanistan until the situation there is stable. Afghanistan has never been stable and by the time it is, if it ever is, Gov. Romney's great-grandchildren will be old enough to serve there.

David OrentlicherVisiting professor, University of Iowa; ex-Indiana state representative :

War Policy Should Be Driven by Necessity, Not by Politics

In the wake of a troop surge that never was justified by any threats to our national security, our soldiers should be brought home quickly. As today's question indicates, political considerations play an inappropriate role in the shaping of our military policy. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was right to acknowledge that we should not be fighting wars of choice. Wars should be fought only out of necessity. It may be difficult for presidents to rise above politics, but they cannot let political factors put the lives of our soldiers at risk.

In 1821 John Quincy Adams cautioned an America swiftly rising in global power to "go not abroad in search of monsters to destroy," that America should be "the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all...but the champion and vindicator only of her own."

Wise words, those.

Unlike Vietnam, Afghanistan was not in the ephemeral monster category - the U.S. was attacked on 9/11 from al-Qaeda safe havens in Afghanistan, and aggressive military action after 9/11 was both warranted and necessary.

The real problems began when the mission turned from rooting out al-Qaeda and attacking terrorist assets in Afghanistan and Central/South Asia to an expansive Iraq-style counterinsurgency mission. Nation building in Afghanistan is a monster too far.

President Obama compounded the problem with unrealistic promises during the campaign to "finish the job in Afghanistan." Then we found out his idea of "finishing the job" was to announce a surge of 30,000 troops in the same breath he promised their swift withdrawal. Huh?

Now Obama is caught between a rock and hard place. Not all his own making, mind you, but his appease public opinion/split-the-difference approach, though understandable, has not worked. Instead it has left his Afghan policy in a tragic limbo.

Whether he announces the draw-down of 5,000 or 10,000 or 20,000 troops makes little difference. The strategy is flawed.

The bottom line is we can't just cut and run from Afghanistan (al-Qaeda, et al. will promptly swarm back in) and we can't create a Sweden there. The sooner we come to grips with this reality the sooner we begin devising a more realistic, limited, and most likely more effective future strategy toward Central and South Asia. That's what John Quincy Adams would do.

All that matters politically is what the Republicans say, especially prominent opponents in the presidential campaign. If they criticize the president for withdrawing troops they will lose the argument. Voters realize we simply cannot afford to keep doing so much internationally.

The president is getting it right fighting terrorism. He has made over 200 drone strikes in two-and-a-half years while President Bush made about 30 in the four years he had the technology available. Bin Laden's dead, Al Qaeda is pinned down, and we're talking to a less active Taliban.

The neocons will complain but few voters share their vision of Pax Americana. A presidential campaign waged on this turf favors President Obama.

Obama is doing on Afghanistan what he has done on most other major issues. He is a centrist president with a slight tilt to the left. He is doing enough to prevent an open revolt from his liberal base, while not doing enough to appease conservative critics. As long as he avoids a liberal, anti-war primary challenge, people will look back on this decision as the right political and policy choice.

Everyone (except for non-influential John McCain and Lindsay Graham) wants out. The question is how fast can it be done? Here is an area where the “bin Laden bounce” is still alive; Obama will get plenty of slack cut for whatever he decides — after all, the death of bin Laden is powering the decision — so long as he makes it clear we are leaving ASAP. The only argument is “define ASAP”.

Ken FeltmanPast president; International Association of Political Consultants :

President Obama's planned announcement that he will bring 5,000 troops home from Afghanistan is a variation on his inability to make firm decisions. In this case, he is trying to mollify everyone. He may end up satisfying no one, especially if casualties continue.

It would come as no surprise to see the White House try to make everybody happy.

The real concern has to be what kind of "message" our "friends" and enemies in the region take away from the announcement. If there is a sense that the U.S. is not committed to finishing the job, this move will be viewed as demonstrating weakness and embolden the resolve and prestige of our enemies.

Splitting the difference on troop withdrawals from Afghanistan will not be a political win for President Obama because the majority of Americans want to end the military operations in a short period of time. However, his Afghanistan policy will not harm him in the 2012 election. First, the positive impact of ending the Iraq War, killing bin Laden, and improving the country's international image will be much greater than the negative impact of Afghanistan. Second, the Republicans will not be able to develop a credible and unified critique of Obama's policies in Afghanistan.

If President Obama were as good at governance as he is at politics, he would defer to our generals on the best tactics and timing for ending the war in Afghanistan and use his time reviewing the generals’ results and mobilizing public support for a victorious outcome.

Unlike Vietnam, where the generals never fully turned the tide in the direction of a U.S. victory, or Korea, where Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s war-widening recommendations could have produced World War III, the general in Afghanistan have brought us close to victory. The original objective---kicking out the Taliban government and pinning down Osama bin Laden was on course until President Bush decided to knock Iraq. The depleted effort produced both military and political setbacks as the Taliban recaptured a lot of lost property and obtained support in the countryside from factions who no longer could bank on U.S. protection. Even President Karzai seemed to be hedging his bets, crying about American atrocities all the way to the bank.

But Iraq no longer a major drain, the U.S. and its allies are reliably reported to have once again brought the south under its wing while preparing for a major, perhaps decisive push in the north. Only a precipitant pull-back would likely cost our effort the victory t it deserves. What is only partly Barack Obama’s war would justly be regarded as Barack Obama’s defeat.

This is the time for victory, not pallid compromise or cowardly defeat. Nor is it a time for splitting hairs back home. We are being watched too closely by China, Pakistan and North Korea to portray an image of political weakness and indecision. And such friends as India, Japan and Taiwan need desperately to know that the America of the 21st Century is there for more than a twitter.

Scott A (guest)
DC:

Splitting the difference is the problem, not the withdrawal itself. Darrell West said basically what I would have - Obama is trying to please both sides and will probably annoy everyone instead. Making strong, decisive foreign policy choices never looks weak, but it looks suspiciously like this decision is more about politics then policy. But, what do I know - maybe this is his commander's recommendation and we're just over-analyzing.

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